The Beatles sold their remaining shares in NEMS on 27 August 1969.
NEMS Enterprises was the company formerly owned by The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein. Following Epstein’s death in August 1967, it was renamed Nemperor Holdings, and functioned as the entity responsible for receiving The Beatles’ earnings and transferring them to Apple Corps, after deducting a 25% management fee.
In February 1969, Triumph Investment Trust approached Nemperor with an acquisition offer. Although Epstein’s mother Queenie and brother Clive discussed the offer with John Eastman and Allen Klein, and gave The Beatles the opportunity to purchase the company, they ultimately accepted Triumph’s offer. The acquisition completed on 17 February and Neil Aspinall, Apple’s managing director, was informed on 21 February.
The Beatles took action to ensure EMI paid monies owed directly to Apple, bypassing Nemperor and Triumph. EMI, uncertain as to how to proceed, froze £1.3 million in royalties owed to The Beatles, pending legal clarification.
The matter was solved after Mr Justice Buckley in London’s High Court refused the plea to freeze the royalties, ensuring that the money was paid to Apple. As part of the resulting deal, NEMS surrendered its claim to 25% of The Beatles’ royalties over the next nine years, and instead received £750,000 in cash, £50,000 for NEMS’s 23% holding in The Beatles’ film company Subafilms, and 5% of gross record royalties from 1972 to 1976. The Beatles also received an option on the 4.5% of Northern Songs shares owned by NEMS, useful in the forthcoming battle for Northern Songs, and received 266,000 shares in Triumph in exchange for The Beatles’ 10 per cent share in NEMS.
The deal took several weeks to finalise, and The Beatles finally sold their shares in NEMS to Triumph on 27 August.